All that is Solid … is a radical blog that seeks to promote a future beyond capital's social universe. "All that is solid melts into air" (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 'The Communist Manifesto', 1848).

The new Tory / Lib Dem government has already announced that we will see Swedish style ‘Free Schools’ being opened.

They also intend to rush through legislation to allow ‘outstanding’ schools to become Academies.

The Swedish ‘Free Schools’ have recently received a lot of criticism. Swedish Trade unions, politicians and even the Swedish National Agency for Education have warned that we there are serious problems with the ‘Free School’ model.

It’s not too late for Liberal Democrat members and MPs to demand that these proposals are abandoned.

In every city and town we need to start to prepare to resist these proposals.

The following Appeal has been circulated to Liberal Democrat MPs, councillors and activists.

At your Spring Conference in 2009 you passed a motion which stated you would “restore strategic Local Authority oversight and commissioning” of Academies.

The Anti Academies Alliance welcomed this decision. It made your party the only party that recognised a key problem with Academies; that they are schools that are outside of local democratic control.

In our questionnaire to election candidates many of your candidates replied repeating this pledge.

As the discussions about the formation of a future government proceed, we appeal to you to stand by this pledge, and to take this historic opportunity to halt the academy programme and the break up of our comprehenisive education system.

It is also important that the Tories’ plans for further privatisation & deregulation are thwarted. Michael Gove’s plans for “new” schools along the lines of the ‘Swedish model’ must be shelved.

We urge every Lib Dem to contact their leadership to demand that a progressive education policy is not squandered in any coalition deal.

Alasdair Smith, National Secretary, Anti Academies Alliance

‘Free’ Schools – a “disaster for standards”

This was the comment made by Nick Clegg, just a week before becoming Deputy Prime Minister:

The move opens the door for a raft of new schools to be set up by parent groups, charities and local businesses as well as existing school providers, a policy not backed by the Liberal Democrats before the election. Legislation later this month will give all schools ranked outstanding by Ofsted the right to step out of local authority control immediately and become academies.

England’s worst performing schools – those categorised under the National Challenge – face redundancies and budget crises from next spring, heads and unions have warned. Improvements to the “named and shamed” secondaries could stall when they lose vital cash during tough financial times in 2011, the school leaders have said. See: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6043684